Police officer accused of making up attack ‘still thinks he was assaulted’

SUS-170830-180354001

Published:15:06Tuesday 06 February 2018

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A Lincolnshire police officer who is alleged to have falsely claimed that he was attacked while on duty today (Tuesday) said he still thinks he was assaulted by a third party.

PC Anthony Colson faces a misconduct hearing after allegedly reporting that he was assaulted after attending the Beechwood car park in Boston.

The hearing has been told PC Colson pressed the emergency button on his air wave radio after going to the car park at around 8.30pm on 18 November, 2016.

Officers found PC Colson with lacerations to his head and hand, and a craft knife nearby. It is alleged PC Colson reported that he had been assaulted and had seen a figure running off in to the woods.

The hearing was told a doctor who examined PC Colson’s injuries concluded they were self inflicted.

But giving evidence at Lincolnshire Police headquarters PC Colson told hearing he had no memory of harming himself.

When asked by a member of the panel what he thought had happened on that night PC Colson replied: “I still think I was assaulted by a third party, but I do accept there is a chance I harmed myself.”

In his closing speech Oliver Thorne, for the appropriate authority, said the evidence pointed towards the injuries being self inflicted.

Mr Thorne argued PC Colson was the author of his injuries and knew his accounts were false when he gave them.

But Guy Ladenburg, defending PC Colson, said healthy police officers simply do not act in this way and argued it had the appearance of a cry for help.

Mr Ladenburg said PC Colson’s actions were not wilful and therefore he was not to blame.

A clinical psychiatrist who repeatedly examined PC Colson concluded the officer did not consciously manipulate the incident and was in a rare “fugue state” which meant his memory may not have been correct, Mr Ladenburg added.

The allegations centre on communications between November 18 and December 16, 2016, in which PC Colson pressed the emergency button on his air wave radio and then repeated that he had been assaulted.